


All The Ships That Passed In The Night

by ravenousbee



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Could be read as hank/connor tbh, Father-Son Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Hank Anderson-centric, Night of the Soul Chapter (Detroit: Become Human), Whump Hank, alternative ending, it's mostly just, kinda???, platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 01:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15938834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenousbee/pseuds/ravenousbee
Summary: If three years ago, you contacted Hank Anderson just to tell him that in exactly three years, he’d be a part of an android revolution, he’d have a partner who dies too many fucking times for an android’s own good, and that the same android somehow would manage to keep him from killing himself?Hank Anderson would’ve laughed, made sure to bless you with his vast vocabulary while making sure his son wouldn’t hear any of it, and then would’ve flipped you off, quite gracefully as he walked back home on a familiar path with his son.Three years ago, things were much more different than now.





	All The Ships That Passed In The Night

_[You can learn to live again.]_

 

If three years ago, you contacted Hank Anderson just to tell him that in exactly three years, he’d be part of an android revolution, he’d have a partner who dies _too many fucking times_ for an _android_ ’s own good, and that the same android _somehow_ would manage to keep him from killing himself?

Hank Anderson would’ve laughed, made sure to bless you with his vast vocabulary while making sure his son wouldn’t hear any of it, and then would’ve flipped you off, quite gracefully as he walked back home on a familiar path with his son.

 

With Cole.

With his angel.

With what a failure of a relationship left him at the late years of his 40s.

  
  


Well, it _is_ certainly unsettling to see the mother leave her child so carelessly and easily. To leave _Hank_ , a police officer who had just began his job, to raise a fragile child. You’d have to be way out of your mind to do something like that and yet she did.

 

_[What they had wasn’t perfect, really._

_But Hank never had anything against imperfections.]_

 

He names him Cole. As dark as a charcoal.

 _Well_ , that’s hilarious.

The child is so pale in his embrace the first time Hank holds him, he thinks it’s going to die.

Cole doesn’t die. Thank heavens for that or whoever’s hanging up there having a puppet show with your lives.

 

_[He makes up for keeping the baby alive later. The creator, the god, the nature, the bastard up there who’s too bored with its own life and messes with other, innocent lives instead.]_

 

Although, Hank doesn’t give up. He rebels. Against who? _Hah_ , no one knows. Maybe against the silhouette of his own father who left his desperate mother with a baby that later grew to be Hank.

He’d take a crying baby to his old, decaying mother for two years before she bids them both farewell, leaving nothing but a tombstone behind. Hank doesn’t cry at the funeral.

Not that there are many people who decide to attend. A lone son and a few old women, all familiar with little _Cole_ , come along only for the sake of their dignity and for the sake of showing empathy. He appreciates them, whether or not they came for his mother.

Cole’s only two. All he’s told was that they’d go home before he knows it, and he doesn’t have to stay under the blazing sun of Detroit summers for any longer. Hank doubts Cole would even remember his grandmother.

 

_[Cole later questions the ‘old nancy’ in his childhood pics. Hank in return questions where he got the name Nancy from, and decides to keep Cole from meeting the concept of death.]_

 

Cole is a… difficult child. Always full of energy, full of joy, so intent on _always_ moving, running, jumping, hell, the kid would’ve climbed the walls if he could. That catch _is_ that he’s also a weak, delicate child with lungs that would ache with the slightest activity other than breathing and rambling on to his father about the dead insects by their window sills.

 

 **[** **In an obscure night]**

 

Cole never says it, but Hank knows watching other kids his age or _younger_ running so freely in the streets hurts him.

 

So, Hank takes the matter into his hands. He buys a dog, a baby Saint Bernard. 0.7 pounds at birth, underweight, the pupper that later is named ‘Sumo’. He’s as weak as Cole when he’s born. Hank thinks they’re a good match.

 

Cole says he names him Sumo because Sumo’s a warrior. Hank jokes about how Sumo doesn’t weigh 1/10 a sumo _wrestler_ , and Cole only smiles goofily, saying that one day, the saint bernard will be as heavy as one.

 

He’s _too_ wrong, Sumo would be dead before he reached that weighmark. But Hank doesn’t say anything and only huffs, muttering a ‘Whatever, sure, you’re right, you little rascal.’

 

 _[Sumo’s_ **_anything_ ** _but a Saint. He breaks, he wets everywhere, and he absolutely shits over everything Hank wants to keep clean. So hank curses as he picks up the fancy-scented material on his rug and Cole laughs in the background, hands ruffling Sumo’s hair graciously._

_Well, that laughter makes it all worth it. So Hank hides a smile, behind a curtain of foul, foul words.]_

  


Cole goes to school.

Daycare. Not school, not really. Although, they’re all the same to Hank. All of them are just four walls with a caretaker inside, teaching things that isn’t worth a drop of his spit in a few years, when Cole grows up.

_[He never does.]_

Still, Cole still goes to… somewhere. He learns the alphabet and learns how to count ‘till ten. A nightmare, really.

Cole just doesn’t _stop_ reciting the numbers, day and night, day and night, _day and night_ , until Hank decides to recite the tiers of thousands and hundreds. The numbers are terrifying enough to shut Cole up.

He starts singing the alphabets instead, and Hank is powerless to stop him as Sumo starts howling prematurely along.

 

_[He doesn’t mind it. The house is too quiet for him sometimes.]_

 

‘Youngest lieutenant in the history of Detroit! That’s so _rad_ , dad!’

So he gets a promotion, a well-deserved one. Somehow, he becomes the _youngest_ lieutenant, graduating top of his class and getting a sparkling golden badge with his name written on it.

There’s a youngster watching him with bright, blue eyes and a scar on his nose when he gets his badge. Well, not _youngster_. He sure looks like a new recruit, maybe in the golden days of his thirties.

Cole’s in Jeffrey’s arms, both bright smiles on their faces.

 

_[Jeffrey follows Hank a year later, knocking at his door with the “LT. FOWLER” badge shining on his chest. Hank invites him in, and Cole sits on his shoulders the entire night. Sumo’s jealous of Fowler for getting so much attention from Fowler, and almost tries to bite on his shoes._

_Despite all that, the night passes on smoothly. He drinks only one shot of whiskey, the unfamiliar taste burning his throat. Since he’s a responsible father, however, he puts the cup aside for the rest of the evening and watches as Fowler’s eyes become glassy and hazier.]_

 

Red ice cases are pleasant for him to solve. The look of _regret_ on the drug dealers’ faces when he cuffs their hands.

 

The recruit keeps admiring him, and Hank thinks that _maybe_ he’s an idol to the younger one. They never talk, at least not until a few years later.

 

Cole celebrates his sixth birthday. Three friends, Samuel, Samantha, the twins and the goofy ginger boy, Jonathan. They mess up his living room, wreck the cushions, at some point spill a whole packet of cereal on the ground. Hank doesn’t get mad.

You only turn six once in your life, so fuck whatever stuck onto his kitchen floor and rubbed against his bare feet. The sight of his son laughing so carefreely is enough.

 

Sumo’s too big for his own good by this time. It’s safe to say he does nothing but contribute to the mess the kids are making with his _huge_ , _vibrating_ tail.

 

They start walking Sumo together. Cole isn’t allowed to run, jump, or do anything that puts pressure on his respiratory system. Cole doesn’t object. Just walking outside with his dog and his father is enough for him.

After a while, Hank’s age catches up with his poor knees.

Cole points out the sounds they make when he walks, and how unsettling it can be.

So, Hank makes some changes to their normal hobbies.

 

He drives to work, he drives Cole to school, and he drives themselves to the park where Sumo runs freely.

 

His car is a manual, old-timer. A beautiful lady in disguise of an ugly car. Hey, she’s still fast and the engines are still roaring, so he ignores Jeffrey’s _pleads_ of getting an automatic car.

He isn’t interested in that Cyberbullshit Detroit’s pulling.

Androids, automatic cars, automatic routes.

  


_[What, next thing they’re going to have android babies and humanity’s going extinct. Surely a sight Hank would love to witness, specially for himself and Cole.]_

 

He hears Cole cry out for him.

 

 _[D-dad, it_ **_hurts_ ** _]_

  
  


_[_ **_I’m sorry_ ** _]_

 

Androids are fucking useless, that’s what they are.

If you can’t perform when a human is unavailable, what are you good for, then? Maybe they can help pollutionize earth a bit more when he burns the lot of them in that terrifying junkyard.

 

Android graveyard.

They don’t even deserve a _grave_ yard.

 

Hank drinks, he drinks and drinks until he can’t think anymore, until he can feel so _much_ that it’s almost as good as not feeling. He drinks so that his limbs fail to take him up to a taxi, he drinks so that the young, bright Jimmy, working day and night in a bar to feed his family, takes him up to an automatic car, sending him home.

 

_[Somewhere along the lines, he sees the younger recruit. Well, a detective now. Detective Gavin Reed. At first, Reed’s glances are hopeful, full of admiration, and a genuine smile over his lips._

_Seeing Hank’s fascinating state of mind and mentality, all Gavin does is scoff at him. Frown, call him pathetic._

_What can he say, anyways? It’s not like Reed’s wrong.]_

 

He drinks because he’s not a responsible father. He drinks, maybe more than a bottle of beer, a bottle of whiskey… What does he even _drink_ ? For what it’s worth, all he can recall is the bitter, _burning_ taste that stays in his throat. Perhaps the bitter taste of loss, grief, guilt.

 

He drinks so that his eyes become glassy and hazy as Jeffrey watches him, incapable and handicapped and just _unable_ to do anything for the sake of an old friend.

 

_[Jeffrey gets promoted to Captain. It should’ve been Hank, he says. It should’ve been me, Hank agrees. But Jeffrey deserved it more than him.]_

 

Sumo doesn’t say anything.

 

 **[** **Fevered with love's anxiety]**

  


Poor guy can’t even _say_ anything. He just whines quietly for the first few weeks and then decides that maybe, recruiting to his little corner in the living room, is much more productive than trying to get Hank to care for the dog.

 

Hank does care for the dog. He just no longer knows how to.

Hank no longer knows how to _live_ , either.

 

_[So he picks up a gun, plays this little game called Russian Roulette. A few clicks and if you’re lucky enough, a bullet runs into your skull and you win. Sumo watches him, eyes pleading for the bullet to never hit him._

_It never does, strangely. Hank ends up passing out each time before it escalates, anyways.]_

 

Solving red ice cases have never felt so satisfying. Just the mere feeling that he’s stopping another surgeon from getting their hand on red ice—just knowing that another kid won’t die over a surgery.

 

_[Although, Reed’s own smiles disappear, cups of coffee line up on his desk, dark bags embrace his eyes and Hank knows why. It’s just the flow of their job. Take the soul, take the innocence, leave nothing but cruelty and hatred towards the world.]_

 

Cole would’ve been proud, if it wasn’t for Hank’s deteriorating state. Cole would’ve also been alive, if not for Hank’s remarkable driving skills.

  
  


_[It’ll act as you partner.]_

 

Jeffrey, that _traitor_ , sends him off on cases with an android. A goddamn _android_.

Detective android that tries so hard to act like a human, it can’t even smile properly.

It smiles _terrifyingly_.

 

And it keeps insisting on asking ‘personal questions’, it doesn’t complete the mission he’s assigned to, and it doesn’t do anything that Hank _orders_ it to do. It keeps insisting on Hank’s diet, and how much he should refer from eating the junk food he’s eating.

Hank responds maturely and instead takes a bite out of his burger.

 

_[Can I ask you a personal question, lieutenant?]_

 

Then, the android finds him passed out on his kitchen floor.

 

 **[** **(O hapless, happy plight!)]**

 

For Sumo and Hank, this is a regular event. It happens… almost every night. Almost every other night. Neither of them talk about it, because they _can’t_ literally talk about it and Hank prefers an actual therapist over an oversized dog.

 

_[He never goes to that therapist he boasts about.]_

 

The android panics, breaking his fucking _window_ , and somehow managing to sober Hank up with the most gracious of techniques.

Cold, _cold_ water. And therefore, Hank sobers up, only to spit out even more profanities but this time with his mind aware of his words.

The android doesn't look offended, or hurt. He only brings Hank a desperately needed change of clothes, and goes off to snoop around his house. Later, the android questions his suicidal tendencies.

  


Hank takes a sip from the good ol’ beer, points a gun at the android’s face, the face that looks _too much_ like Cole.

 

_[But are you afraid to die, Connor?]_

_Connor_ doesn’t react. He tilts his head, eyes filled with questions, confusion, _wonders_ and Hank has to put some time away only to think whether or not the android _wonder_ about anything in this fuck-up of a world.

 

He doesn’t shoot, and instead he drinks.

Whatever he does not, he drinks instead.

 

_[Connor probably saw Cole’s picture and decided not to mention. Cyberlife at least gave him the ability to be rational._

 

_When did he start referring to the android as him?]_

 

He watches a slave be interrogated, he watches a machine showing symptoms of PTSD. He watches two girls in love, two _machines_ desperately holding onto each other. He watches a lonesome boy, obsessed with pigeons, a machine in love with animals way dumber than himself.

 

He watches a lost boy die each time a machine runs free.

 

He watches the lost boy, point a gun at a beautiful girl.

 

He prays that the machine doesn’t shoot the feminine one, and that guy up there answers to his prayers.

 

Hank finds himself with a drink that night. This time, it’s getting drunk over victory.

 

_[Maybe you did the right thing.]_

 

He drinks again, not in victory. He grieves. He grieves for an android who dies and comes back, he grieves for a son who died and never came back. He apologizes, to Cole, to -51,-52,-53-,-54,-55,-56,-57,-58.

He wears a sweater, sweaty enough to stick to his stained shirt. He sits behind his desk, looking at Sumo. Oh, Sumo.

 

Sumo looks back, eyes tired, breaths slow, and fur as dirty as it can get. He cries and he apologizes to the dog, a miserable animal trapped in the fucked up life of this old man.

 

Hank looks at a picture. A picture that lies face-down on the table. A picture that frames joy, happiness, hope. A smile. A smile that Hank would do anything to get back.

 

_[Maybe, just maybe, if Connor hadn’t died so many goddamn times, he could’ve looked at the world with a fresh, new pair of glasses.]_

 

Hank visions a young man, brown hair, and brown eyes, freckles and moles. features too innocent for what he’s seen and what he’s been through. He imagines the young one without an armband, without a triangle on his chest and without a serial number gracing the fabric of his coat.

 

He looks up, and he sees what he’s imagined.

 

 **[** **I went, none seeing me]**

 

A young man, with an outfit far too ungraceful for a person his age. A beanie, loosely pulled over his head and a step away from covering his eyes.

 

_[Whenever Cole felt cold, he’d pull Hank’s coat on his shoulders and wear Hank’s beanies. Just that they were too large for a head the size of Cole’s, and the poor kid always managed to blind himself with those hats.]_

 

Hank’s sight’s blurry. His eyes are far too unfocused, and all he sees is a dead man walking. A dead man who… comes back, a _machine_ that never dies.

 

_[I was worried about you.]_

 

Hah. What a joke.

Like machines could get worried.

What the fuck has this world come to? Androids having a god, androids gettings… worried, humans and androids having relationships? What a fucking _mess_.

 

_[I want you to know I’m sorry.]_

 

He likes to think he secretly doesn’t want the android to stay.

He’s _so_ scared. He’s been living for fifty years and more and yet, he doesn’t _want_ to die yet. At the same time, does he have anything left to live for?

His lover came by and left.

His mother, never came. She was forever there. And suddenly, she no longer was.

Cole came, took shelter at his doorstep and later in his arms, crying for a mother than abandoned them both, and… died, in Hank’s arms. Hank’s arms, where he thought he’d be forever safe in.

Jeffrey. At some point they had fallen apart, Jeffrey too busy filing the novel of his disciplinaries, and Hank too busy adding to it.

Gavin Reed. An admirer, who saw Hank for who he truly was and just decided, he wasn’t worth admiring. Hank can’t exactly blame him. Do you expect a young man to idolize the hair that’s been unbrushed for a month? Or a beard that’s been overgrowing for far too long?

 

Somehow, in the center of it all sat an android with an expression so naïve and lost, voice too unsure of himself even though he _is_ the most advanced android. He sits, Sumo by his side, and Hank has to rub his eyes when he sees Cole next to Connor.

 

In the middle of it all.

 

_[You can learn to live again.]_

 

What a joke.

 

_[For yourself.]_

 

He wishes he could laugh. Instead, he just looks down at his revolver. Six bullets.

He isn’t playing a game, this time.

 

_[And for Cole.]_

 

For Cole?

But Cole was _gone_.

 

_[Go on, complete your mission, since that’s all you care about.]_

 

He expects the android to leave. Connor surpasses his expectations. ...Or, disappoints, in a way.

Rage fills him, he screams, screams at the boy to get out, hoping to have scared him away. Machine or not, Hank would rather bleed alone in his house rather than have two eyes that record everything, watching him.

 

Connor remains firm where he stands.

His eyes look… unfocused, as if he’s battling demons of his own, as well. ...Hah, like androids could have _demons_ inside of their… microchips, and wires, and anything that identifies as a brain.

 

_[Promise me that you won’t leave me.]_

 

Slow steps, quiet marching.

A hand takes the revolver from his hands, as gentle as it can be. As if Hank would break if someone _caressed_ him.

 

_[I won’t. I’m here. I’m here.]_

 

The picture of his son lies face-down on the table, the hand keeping Hank’s eyes away from the joyful face that haunts his consciousness, subconsciousness, and unconsciousness.

 

 _[It just, hurts._ **_Dad, it hurts._ ** _]_

 

He’s broken too many promises.

Maybe even people. How many people has he hurt with just his actions or words?

 

_[It’s okay. You’re okay. You’ll be okay.]_

 

And all the people he’s met. All the ships that passed in the night.

Arms wrap around him, as if they’ve never embraced a human being before.

 

_[Cole passes away in the hospital, hand in his father’s hand, head on his father’s shoulder, and an android watches them from far apart, a telltale smile on her lips and an LED that shines too brightly for the atmosphere of the room.]_

 

‘Please.’

Connor’s _begging_.

‘Don’t leave.’

Oh that _son of a gun_.

 

 _[A surgeon, the one who had Cole’s key to survival in his hands, sits at his home, the key buried within a fistful of powder. Red ice, the drug of their times. He finds comfort, while Hank discovers what’s it like to lose something_ **_so_ ** _precious.]_

 

Hank swallows.

The android’s desperately by his side, arms clinging onto him as if his life depends on it.

The house is quiet, but there’s the distant sound of an LED flickering next to his right ear, and that’s enough for him for the while.

A look at Sumo, and the dog seems… at peace, watching the duo.

A look at Connor, and he sees what he’s been asking for from the gods for the past three years.

 

A partner?

A son?

A friend?

  
  
  


_[Maybe you are the ones who’ll make this world a better place.]_

 

Whatever, really.

  


**[** **Forth from my house, where all things quiet be.]**

  


It’s not perfect.

But Hank never had anything against imperfections.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> *inhales*  
> 1)the italics are, random notes tbh. at the end of the fic it's mostly dialogue, from cole, hank, or connor.  
> 2)the bold lines are a poem called "dark night of the soul" by 'john of the cross', i hope you like that addition c: 
> 
> I should be working on my Call me by your name AU fic but oh no. I had this idea and i couldn't not-write it.  
> so, here it is. hank anderson, our father (and our god tbh), the journey from a lil' bit after the beginning 'till now. 
> 
> I HATED how deviant connor just leaves hank in the night of the soul chapter so ):< i had to write something about that specific part but then again i had, some ideas about gavin and fowler before the game so. Here it goes
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it! I'd appreciate some feedback :') <3


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